


'Til I lose count

by alittlenutjob



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6087441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlenutjob/pseuds/alittlenutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She isn't where she was supposed to be, but she knows that no one really is where they thought they would be back when they were 20 years old and afraid they'd never be someone that other people could love, much less someone who could love herself. </p><p>Music: Chandelier, Sia</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til I lose count

If she'd met him when she was 20, she'd have been too shy to say hello. Even if he said hi first.

She'd have spent all night on the phone with Gwen deconstructing the situation that made a man like him say hello to a girl like her. Did he think maybe because she was chubby and nerdy that she'd put out? Did he have a thing for Indian girls? Did he even talk to her at all, or was he saying hi to some girl behind her with big boobs and thick hair and no reason to question why hot men might greet her unprompted in a club too loud and too cool for undergrads with chin acne and MCATs on the horizon?

 

If she'd met him when she was 25 she'd have pushed the condom into his palm before the end of the sentence.

She'd have been perfectly drawn from head to toe, every curve accentuated, every accessory plucked from her vanity like a pearl and nestled against brown skin at intervals designed to draw the eye from her touseled curls to thighs now thick and powerful from spin classes, all the way down to her fuck-me pumps. Her schedule didn't leave much time for the niceties and a little fun in coat check or a cab on the way to the next club was the most she could promise anyone. She could still meet up with Lizzie and Mr Darcy on a Sunday morning if she felt the need for romance in her life. Sex was sex and romance was romance, and neither of them made becoming a doctor any quicker or easier. “Get yours, girl,” Alex would cheer as they fast forwarded to Colin coming out of the lake. Five years didn't make her a new woman, but it had taught her a few things about men and how to get the most out of your long weekend between gruelling studies and quasi-work that featured in her life as a freshly minted doctor. Maybe she'd still be likely to get a secret thrill out of having slept with a stranger less than an hour after she met him, but mostly she'd push the memory out of the way to make space for signs of a prolapsed umbilical cord and how to re-establish blood flow and save a baby's life.

Her own life? A work in progress.

 

If she'd met him when she was 30 she'd have planned the wedding before they said good night.

It was harder now to ignore the way her friends were pairing off and disappearing like mist. Gwen's wedding had been beautiful, but tears she'd shed weren't happiness. The truth universally acknowledged was that her friends were leaving her behind. “Mindy, 30 isn't that old,” Gwen would reassure her on their now rare lunch dates. “You're being dramatic.”

Then Gwen would go home to her perfect house and her weird but completely devoted husband and beautiful, beautiful little girl.

So if she'd met him when she was 30 she'd have a picture forming in her head before they even finished their drinks – a criminally overpriced Noho loft and dinner parties every month that people would talk about for a week afterward.

They'd spend the night together and the sequel would appear behind her eyelids before she fell asleep. Their little girl would have tight curls and huge black-brown eyes full of trust. After a hundred little fights about names they'd agree that Mia was a good name. _Mine_. She'd have to learn how to take care of hair so different from her own, and he'd learn about a hundred kinds of god, but they'd learn how to be parents together so it would all turn out alright in the end.

 

But she met him when she was 35. She met him at the end of a long night in which she felt alternately invisible and too obvious, each drink diminishing the effect enough that by the time he flashed his smile and shook her hand like a gentleman it hardly mattered why he chose her. “Don't do it, Dr. L,” Tamra's reflection warned her in an overbright restroom mirror as they touched up lipstick and agreed to check in on each other at midnight. “That one's boyfriend material. He looks like Nate Parker. You don't waste a hot guy with a job on a one-night stand.”

Mindy twists the lipstick and firmly caps the tube. “He's just a dentist, Tamra. Dentists don't marry you, they just waste time with you while they look for their real wife.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nevermind,” Mindy whispers sadly before pulling the corners of her mouth back to draw her lips taut so she can set the lipstick, a true winedark red shade called 'Business Bitch', with a little powder before going back out into the crowded bar to find her handsome mistake and take him home to undo what Danny Castellano has done. “I'll text you later, let you know I'm okay.”

She's more cautious than she's ever been before, sending Tamra a quick selfie of the two of them together before she gives the cabbie her address. She tells him before turning the key in the door that she has a son, but he's with his father tonight. This can't possibly the be the first time he's gone home with a girl with a kid; he clearly knows the drill. He asks how old, but not for a name. He asks about the neighbourhood, not the one-bedroom clearly designed for single mom – half her, half Leo from the stuffed elephant on the nightstand to the bras drying on the shower curtain. This is her place, and he knows the boundaries. He doesn't ask about Leo's dad, and if all goes well she won't break down one day and let Leo's dad ask about him. Her sex life is not Danny's business anymore. This is just for tonight.

He's good. The sex is good. It's not the best sex she's had in her life, but it's a release and there's something to be said for that.

If she were 30 she'd lie to herself and say that every new caress wiped away the patterns drawn on her skin by the man before like waves carrying sand back to the sea. She'd tell the ghost of Danny that looks over her shoulder every morning as she prepares a breakfast for their son that his hold over her was over now. She'd whisper what happened tonight into every corner of the room like saying goodbye to the dream that she might have the family she'd always hoped to have with him might cleanse the old memories like burning sage. If she were 30.

If she were 25 she'd revel in the pleasure of the night, and tomorrow morning she'd wash away the traces of lipstick and reapply a fresh coat. Maybe she and Tamra would catch 10 minutes for coffee and she'd go over the details quickly before they clear away paper cups and return to their real lives and their jobs. Boys were fun, but like the label says, she's the business bitch and she has bigger better things to do.

If she were 20 she'd close the door behind him and lay awake all night wondering what it meant. Does every woman feel empty on a night like this, or is it just her? Is is always her? Her friends never seem to struggle with this, but maybe they hate this feeling and she was too stupid to ask. Will anyone ask her?

The apartment is so quiet now and every moment over the past year that she'd prayed just _five minutes_ where no one needed her feels like a joke because she has never missed her son as much as she does right now. She's not supposed to be alone.

Her phone chimes and the bright blue assigned to Tamra in the quick contacts lights up the room briefly. _It's midnight. I'm ok. U ok?_

She's 35 years old. She's working twice the hours she worked as a resident but she's delivering babies she helped people conceive every week, and it's more than she ever knew she was capable of being.

She met the love of her life in an unconventional way and it's a safe bet that he's missing his stuffed elephant tonight.

She isn't where she was supposed to be, but she knows that no one really is where they thought they would be back when they were 20 years old and afraid they'd never be someone that other people could love, much less someone who could love herself. Her hand hovers over the phone for a second before she picks it up and taps out a response.

_I'm okay._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this for weeks. No beta, so sorry for the mess. As always I own nothing but the laptop.


End file.
